Villian(s)  Evil alter-ego

Actor(s):  Bernie Casey, Rosalind Cash, Marie O'Henry, Ji-Tu Cumbuka

Brief Description  Dr. Black, Mr. Hyde (also known as The Watts Monster) is a 1976 Blaxploitation horror film directed by William Crain. Capitalizing on the commercial success of Crain’s previous hit, Blacula (1972), this film reimagines Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde gothic novella through the lens of race, class, and social anxiety in 1970s Los Angeles.

Plot:
The story follows Dr. Henry Pride (played by Bernie Casey), a highly successful, wealthy African American physician and medical researcher. Dr. Pride splits his time between an affluent white suburb near UCLA and a free community clinic in Watts, where he treats the city's poorest Black residents. Driven by the memory of his late mother—a maid who turned to alcoholism to dull the misery of cleaning up a high-class brothel—Pride desperately seeks a cure for cirrhosis of the liver. When his laboratory test subjects fail to deliver conclusive data, Dr. Pride chooses to experiment on himself. He injects his newly formulated, cell-regenerating serum, which triggers a grotesque, unstable mutation. Instead of transforming into a traditional dark beast, he turns into an pale, ashen, "albino" monster with light-colored eyes but retaining a large afro.

Driven by an uncontrollable, psychotic rage, his monstrous alter-ego embarks on a brutal killing spree across the streets of Watts, primarily targeting local prostitutes, pimps, and drug dealers. As a tough police lieutenant closes in on the dual-personality killings, Pride's research colleague, Dr. Billie Worth (Rosalind Cash), tries to unravel the science behind the mutation before Henry is completely destroyed. The film builds to a dramatic, tragic climax where a cornered Pride scales the iconic Watts Towers, mirroring the ending of King Kong. Traditional horror often utilizes blackness or darkness to signify monstrosity. This film completely subverts that dynamic—whiteness is explicitly weaponized as the monster, causing devastation within a Black community.